Broken Trust
Jodi Rave’s series for Lee Enterprise Newspapers is a complicated story about Indian land rights and federal bureaucracy. But more than that, it’s a tale of how discrimination older than the United States conspired with neglect and malfeasance to bleed millions of dollars from a struggling people.
Rave hung the series on the peg of a remarkable event — a contempt charge brought against a presidential cabinet member — and then mined many of her stories from a single court document that proved to be a mother lode.
Rave provides insights into the universal challenges of swimming through a bureaucratic morass, and the reporting problems specific to Indian country. It’s a lesson on how a reporter can work at recognizing and mitigating biases about the government — federal and tribal — to produce a story that sticks to the facts.
Part 1 of “Broken Trust” is available in The Authentic Voice. Read the rest of the series below.
We Have to Do A Better Job Than Our Competition
In its role as trustee for tribes and tribal citizens, the U.S. government oversees $3.1 billion in assets. The result: Hundreds of tribes and up to 800,000 past and present Native landowners have relied on bureaucrats to manage their land and income for more than a century.
A Long Line of Broken Promises
Native landowners are suing the Interior Department for its inability to account for billions of dollars in land and assets it manages for hundreds of thousands of tribal citizens.
What Has To Change?
Despite widespread agreement that the native fund trust system isn’t working, tribal leaders and government officials have yet to decide how to fix it.
Education is Your Most Powerful Tool
An elder on Idaho’s Fort Hall Reservation helps others take control of their land.
They Can’t Just Send Us A Figure Of How Much We Have
Despite legislation allowing greater control, tribes have been slow to invest their trust funds.
They Resurrected Ross Swimmer
Despite past controversy as BIA head, Ross Swimmer steps back into management role.
We Have to Save For Our Futures
Mini-banks encourage Native youths to aim for financial success.
Resources
Jodi Rave’s series for Lee Enterprise Newspapers is a series of complicated stories about Indian land rights and federal bureaucracy. “Broken Trust” provides insights into the universal challenges of swimming through a bureaucratic morass and the reporting problems specific to Indian country. It’s a lesson on how a reporter can work at recognizing and mitigating biases about the government — federal and tribal — to produce a story that sticks to the facts.